


Stripes in the Astronomy Tower

by lirin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Knitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-07
Updated: 2011-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Partway through their seventh year, Neville and Luna share a quiet afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stripes in the Astronomy Tower

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend Maggie for beta-reading.

After what had happened the previous spring, nobody came up to the Astronomy Tower unless they had to. This made it the perfect spot for the remnants of the D.A. and other rebels to hide for a moment, although like anywhere else in the castle, Filch or the Carrows would find them if they stayed in one place for too long.

On this November afternoon, Filch was staking out the library, Professor Alecto Carrow was in the greenhouse arguing with Professor Sprout, and Professor Amycus Carrow was discussing the latest political events with Headmaster Snape in the staffroom (as soon as they walked in, the other professors all left in silent loathing, so they had the room to themselves). Luna Lovegood was therefore safe for the moment as she sat in a corner near the top of the tower with a blanket, a book, an automatically-refilling mug of hot chocolate which she had talked the kitchen elves into giving her, and a scarf.

There were a few things that made this scarf different from most scarves. It had a diagonal pattern with garish stripes of orange, yellow, blue, and violet, but this was unsurprising to anyone who had seen much of Luna’s wardrobe. More surprising was the fact that knotted wool hung from every place a new color began, the latest stripe (yellow) was still connected to a skein of wool in Luna’s lap, the scarf was on knitting needles at one end, and those needles were in Luna’s hands. This was no ordinary scarf knit by loving mother or doting aunt, sent in a care package to be tossed aside while counting how many Chocolate Frogs were hidden under that bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. Luna probably would have made her own scarf even if she had been blessed with aunt and mother both, for she enjoyed creating new things and trying new things, and this was both.

The book which she had suspended in front of her was a Muggle one, full of frozen pictures of people wearing sweaters and hats and gloves—and scarves, of course. At first, the method of wrapping the yarn and creating a new stitch had seemed overwhelming, but now she scarcely needed to look at the instructions as one stripe followed another and her stitches became faster and more even.

Half a liter of hot chocolate and ten scarf stripes after Luna had curled up in her corner—in other words, quite a while but not as long as one might think, for each stripe was less than an inch wide—the sound of soft footsteps insinuated itself against the clicking of her needles. Alarmed, she froze except for one hand, which crept toward her wand as she waited for friend or foe to be revealed upon the staircase.

She relaxed a minute later when Neville Longbottom appeared, alone and not even looking too beat-up for once. He looked startled but relieved to find her there, and was similarly accoutered with book (Raising Mimbulus Mimbletonia for Profit and Pleasure), mug of hot beverage (apparently tea), and scarf (unattached to wool or needles, and bearing evidence of a long history that had involved chocolate, pumpkin juice, and more than one Potions accident). He had no blanket or coat, however, so when he came and joined Luna in sitting on the stone floor, Luna cast a quick Engorgio and enlarged the blanket to provide them both with warmth.

“Have you...been having a good day?” Neville asked, setting his mug on top of his book.

Luna smiled. “Oh yes. You can see so many interesting things from up here. Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were wandering around in the bushes by the lake, but they ran into a cloud of Wrackspurts—Accio blue wool! The giant squid poked a tentacle out of the water once—you could just see it over behind that tree. And when Professor Carrow was leaving the greenhouse, she walked right into a Devil’s Snare while trying to avoid the Venomous Tentacula. Professor Sprout had to untangle her.”

Having had a great deal of experience with both these plants, Neville was rather pleased to hear of the malign and unpopular professor’s accident. “Was she hurt?”

“She seemed to think she was. I couldn’t see well from here, but I don’t think Professor Sprout thought it was much more than a scratch.”

“Professor Sprout thinks lots of things are just a scratch. Did I ever tell you about the time a mandrake nearly bit my hand off? She just pulled a bottle of Dittany out of her pocket and told me to dab a bit on and keep working. Turned out fine, too. I think I might start carrying Dittany in my pockets, too—you never know when it might come in handy these days.”

Luna smiled sadly and kept knitting. Neville realized he had strayed too close to their unspoken taboo on discussing current events, and hastened to change the subject. “Is that a scarf that you’re making? It looks nice. And warm. Nice and warm. And very interesting color choices. Purple’s a good color, you don’t see people wear it very often.”

“Yes, I wanted a scarf that’s not just in my house colors,” Luna replied. “I got this book last summer, and the wool and needles when we went into Hogsmeade. I was saving it for when I was caught up on schoolwork and I had a free afternoon that I could try to get away from it all. You see, the nice thing about knitting is, when it feels like the world’s crashing down around you and there’s nothing you can do about it, you still have something small that you control, and it’s a good thing. And every time I create another stitch, that’s another good thing in the world that wasn’t there before. Unless I make a mistake, but that hasn’t been happening nearly as frequently as it was at the beginning.”

“I didn’t realize yellow and blue stripes could have goodness about them,” Neville said.

“Oh yes, well you know sun colors are lucky, and sky colors represent optimism. So whenever I wear the scarf, I’ll have luckiness, and optimism, and the memories of making it—of sitting here, and drinking hot chocolate, and now of talking to my friend. It’s so peaceful up here, don’t you think?”

“It is peaceful, yes. Is it very hard to learn?”

“What, knitting? It’s easy. You hold this needle in your left hand, and this empty needle in your right hand—are you right-handed? And you put the wool next to you on the floor, but don’t let it get in your tea.” As Neville found himself holding scarf and needles, Luna crouched behind him and reached over his shoulders, guiding his hands. “Now, you put the needle through this stitch, wrap the yarn around, and pull the needle back out. Now you have a new stitch on the right needle, so you drop the old stitch off the left needle. And then you just keep doing it over and over. Like this.”

As she demonstrated again, Neville shook his head in bewilderment. “Nevermind, I probably wouldn’t be much good at it, anyway,” he said. “There’s too many motions, I couldn’t possibly remember it all.”

“You remember how to take care of Billowing Bibblewort, don’t you ? And nobody else was able to follow all those directions without missing at least one step. You’re good at school, I think you could learn anything you wanted to. This is a lot easier than Bibblewort. Don’t you want to at least try?”

Neville looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure. I don’t have anything else to do this afternoon.”

“Okay, good. There’s an old rhyme my mother used to sing. As we sat by the fire in the evening, she would knit, Daddy would read, and I would play with blocks. Maybe this will help.” And she sang:

  
_“Your owl flew in last night at nine;  
The letter said, ‘Will you be mine?’  
It also said, ‘Come see me soon!’  
In joy, I ran around the room.  
So now I send my owl to you  
To say I’ll be your love so true.  
Come, let’s run off, and quickly, dear,  
To pledge our troth before New Year’s._   


“Do you see? The owl flying in is the needle entering the stitch; then the yarn runs around the room, and the owl flies out—that’s the needle again. And then the old stitch runs off the needle.”

“That makes more sense to me than ‘put the needle here and wrap the yarn around,’” said Neville. “Let me try it now.” He put his tongue between his teeth and whistled ‘Your owl flew in.’

The first few stitches went rather slowly, as singing an entire eight-line song to oneself every time one makes a stitch is rather time-consuming. About halfway through the row, he reduced the poem to a muttered “in-run-send-off,” and was making each stitch one fluid motion by the end of the row. Luna watched, cheering him on every time he caught a mistake, and especially as he finished a row.

Neville knit two more rows before handing the bright scarf back to Luna. “That was fun,” he said. “Maybe I’ll do it again sometime.”

“I knew you could do it!” Luna said. “And now, you’ve created ninety good things that weren’t there before!”

Neville looked at the scarf, and Luna, and the ninety blue stitches he had made. “I found more than ninety good things up here.”

“What else did you find?”

“I found out that you can sing. You sound like a sparrow—or a lark. Could you sing something else?”

“If you want to listen,” said Luna.

So as the sun went down, the two friends sat in the Astronomy Tower. Neville read, Luna sang and knit her scarf, and they both enjoyed what could be their last afternoon of peace in that time of war.

**Author's Note:**

> Note the First: The colors of Luna’s scarf can be chosen by writing out the colors of the rainbow in order (ROY G. BIV), numbering them 1–7, and circling all the ones with prime numbers. I’m not saying this is how Luna made her selection, but it’s certainly how I did.
> 
> Note the Second: Here is the pattern for Luna’s scarf (If anybody actually makes it, please let me know!):  
> 
>
>> Materials: one skein each of worsted weight wool in orange, yellow, blue, and violet; 5mm straight knitting needles  
> Cast on 30 sts with yellow yarn.  
> Row 1: Kfb, K to 2 sts from end, K2tog  
> Row 2: K  
> Repeat these two rows once more.  
> Repeat the last 4 rows with orange, and continue similarly in O-Y-B-V stripe pattern until scarf is of desired length. Bind off after fourth row of pattern repeat, but without changing color.
> 
> Note the Third: Because its stripes run diagonally, Luna’s scarf has more than the typical beginner’s knit-every-row-until-you-run-out-of-yarn pattern, as can be seen above. Since Luna lets Neville knit on her scarf without telling him about increasing and decreasing (Kfb is an increase and K2tog is a decrease; they’re what cause the scarf to go diagonally), he’s not following this pattern. So there would seem to be 3 alternatives:
> 
> 1) Luna came up with a magical way to have the stripes go diagonally without her doing anything to cause this shaping. Since we know magical knitting exists (cf. Mrs. Weasley’s unattended knitting needles), this is at least a possibility.
> 
> 2) Luna taught Neville how to knit on her scarf because it was the only yarn and needles handy, but she’s going to rip out what he did later. I’ve done this a couple times when demonstrating a technique to someone, but never with a beginner’s precious first (usually pretty wonky-looking) stitches. I don’t think Luna would be this heartless.
> 
> 3) Luna’s scarf is going to have an odd bit that goes in a different direction and doesn’t fit the pattern, and whenever she wears it, she’ll remember that that’s the bit Neville knit, and not care that it looks odd. From what I know of Luna, I think this is the most likely.


End file.
